Distant dodgy ducks

 Yes, indeedy, on a weekend tip-off, I had a go at scanning for a pair of long-tailed ducks yesterday evening, as it had become sunny and calm. They had been seen from Cloghna Head at the other end of the beach, which is about 2ish km away....

Took a while, but I picked them up in the end. Hardly giving themselves up but they looked the part, honest guv! The ID was clinched when they upped and flew miles out to sea as it got closer to dusk, to roost in deeper water, as previously documented by Hope-Jones (1979). #ScienceInaction

In other news the gull-billed tern is still alternating between sitting on its humph in a field beside kilkeran lake or else pouncing on eart-worms up in the ploughed field. Here's the best pic that I've managed of it.

A gull-billed tern yesterday

Onwards and upwards - the dugbirds will be back soon!

Mystery solved

Yes indeedy, although the patch has been largely dead for the first couple of months of 2024, the lake finally turned up the goods!

The weekend before last I was checking the lake and briefly glimpsed a bird in flight that I couldn't nail. The nearest I got was possible ross's gull. But thats the sort of bird news that you really don't want to be putting out so I convinced myself it must have been a funny med gull.

Fast forward a week, and I was checking the lake again and saw a bird on the shore that again I couldn't identify. This time, I was leaning more towards forster's tern but it didn't really add up. So I drove down the road for a closer look. It wasn't there. Went back home and scanned again from the Majik Patio (tm). There it was again, with a handful of black-headed gulls, with which it was a comparable size, though different jizz. Back down the road but it wasn't there. Again.

Then I saw it flying around - it was a tern and looked all light grey above - the wings, mantle, rump and tail were all the same shade of light grey, with white around the sides of the neck and a slight mask behind the eye. It landed, and I could see the legs were dark and the bill was chunky and dagger-shaped and all-black. By the process of elimination based on its size and features, it gradually dawned on me that it had to be an adult winter gull-billed tern. Result! Although, sadly not a patch tick, having had one in the same place back in July 2023.

The bird flew up to a nearby ploughed field and hawked around a bit before returning to the lake, always remaining pretty distant and I wasn't able to get anything better than piss-poor record shots. Luckily Old Spoons jammed into it nice and close flying from the ploughed field back to the lake the following day....

Cracker!

the gull-billed tern yesterday

My first contender for New Old Snowy for 2024 too - all good! 

Every Little Helps

 So, that's January out of the way... and February kicked off with yet another year-tick (#YAY). A distant but nonetheless fine example of a first winter Little Gull sitting amidst the Herring Gull roost on Rabbit Island yesterday elicited a satisfying "Fux sake. Jammy c**t" out of Seppy, which is always a good sign.

Crap phone-to-scope photo... cracking early year-tick

The patch flew along in January, in fairness, fuelled by some very handy lingering birds from December (here's looking at you, Ring-necked Duck, Scaup, Goldeney, Cattle Egret and... drumroll... Slavonian Grebe). A Coot on the lake towards the end of the month was another welcome addition, and a full-fat patch tick in the form of a superb redhead Goosander on Squince Lagoon was pure gold.

Is this Seppy's bird from Kilkeran a few weeks back?

All of which January japery takes me to a healthy 89 species for the year, or 71.01% in real currency. Which is great... but leaves very little scope for tickage until the migs start rolling in (I hope). Onwards!